"I, Maya Plisetskaya" Automatic translate

The Russian Seasons of the 21st Century RPO and the GRAUND Solyanka Gallery and Workshop, with the support of the Moscow Department of Culture, are presenting the project “I, Maya Plisetskaya”, which will open the jubilee year dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of the world famous ballerina. The artistic director of the project is the People’s Artist of Russia Andris Liepa.

On December 18, the total installation “I, Maya Plisetskaya” will open for the public in the gallery-workshop “GRUND Solyanka”. Its author is Maria Tregubova, widely known as a theater artist, whose performances are in the repertoires of leading theaters in Russia and abroad (Bolshoi Theater, Moscow Art Theater named after A.P. Chekhov, Bolshoi Theater, Alexandrinsky Theater, Theater of Nations, etc.). The musical and drama project “I, Maya Plisetskaya” is the first major solo work of Maria Tregubova in the field of contemporary art.

The project was based on the autobiographical book of the same name “I, Maya Plisetskaya”. First published in 1994, it has become a bestseller and has been reprinted fifteen times.

Maria Tregubova about the project: “Maya Plisetskaya is a unique phenomenon. She was never just a performer of the set parts. She has always been an artist, an author in everything. The objective of the project was to create a portrait of Plisetskaya, finding for this a form that fits this completely extraordinary nature. This portrait could not be absolutely realistic. This would not be consistent with her bully character. It could not have been completely abstract - it would be too pitiful to lose the documentary details, without which the portrait would not be complete. The result was a system of images in space, not directly related to each other, and mounted in a single whole only in the head of the viewer. At the same time, the viewer is also vested with the right of authorship, creating his portrait of Plisetskaya from pieces of the puzzle. ”

Each of the six rooms of the total installation is associated with one of the periods of life or aspects of the personality of Maya Plisetskaya. The installation opens with a video archive, where on television screens are shown recordings of interviews and performances of different years, excerpts from biographical films and fragments of news chronicle. Another room is a ballet hall, behind it is the kitchen in the communal apartment of the Bolshoi Theater, in which Maya Plisetskaya happened to live in the post-war years. The white room with the piano, in which the music of Rodion Shchedrin dedicated to the ballerina sounds, is the embodiment of the greatest love in art and in life. The black room, filled with frozen figures in black suits, eyes for peeping and holes for eavesdropping, reflects the theme of the ballerina’s relationship with the Soviet ruling structures. And, finally, a room with an endless staircase leading up the ballerina’s path. The order of visiting the rooms is free, so that each viewer makes his own route.

Andris Liepa, artistic director of the project: “It so happened that over the past fifteen years I have been doing evenings in honor of Maya Mikhailovna, and the last ninetieth anniversary I dedicated to her memory. Our life is connected with amazing meetings and, probably, one of the most iconic ones that happened to me was a meeting with Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya and Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin.

The musical and dramatic work based on the book “I, Maya Plisetskaya” is a project of the Foundation “Russian Seasons of the XXI Century”, dedicated to the Great Ballerina, the Woman who conquered the best scenes of the world. This is a life-long love story. Rodion Shchedrin presented his Muse with absolutely fantastic works, dedicated many ballets to her, and thus extended the creative life of the unrivaled Prima. ”

The choice of the venue is not accidental: the GRAUND project is aimed at cross-disciplinary statements, where the boundaries between genres are blurred.

GRAUND space curator Katya Bochawar: “Creating a total installation, the artist becomes the director and playwright of the space, working in close conjunction with the composer, choreographer, and video maker. The structure of the total installation includes the art of performance, sound art and theatrical design, which puts it on the border between theater and modern art, making it a work of the KhMAT (Artistic Interdisciplinary Anti-Theater) genre. ”

The exhibition "I, Maya Plisetskaya" in the gallery-workshop "GRAUND Solyanka" will run until January 19, 2020.

The creators of the project:

Artistic Director - Andris Liepa
Total installation - Maria Tregubova
Video content - Alexander Fedorko, Alina Titova, Ilya Starilov
Choreography - Tatyana Chizhikova
Light - Ivan Vinogradov
Sound producer - Alexey Titov
Producer - Sergey Savin
Executive Director - Elena Ulyanova
GRAUND Project Curator - Katya Bochawar